The accounts, not to be implemented until 2015, are only for low-income seniors and youth. These banks should extend this benefit to the large number of Canadians between the ages of 18 and 65 who are also currently living in poverty. It is critical that services for low-income people are universal and not create divisions between the deserving and the un-deserving poor.

Canada's banks stayed afloat during the Great Recession without a real need for the taxpayer's life jacket, whereas American banks either sank or needed the taxpayer's life boat. But what is less known about our financial system is that its merits go beyond its resolve over the last decade.